Lucky Apocalypse Stories
by Exoskeletal
Summary: In the latest chapter, survivors of nuclear war meet in the forests of northern Japan. Crack/horror fic: a series of random Lucky Star stories with the theme of apocalypse.
1. Hollow World

**Lucky Apocalypse Stories:**

Hello. My second Lucky Star fic here. It's also silly and meaningless, but hopefully will go on a bit longer.

Reading through the archive, I noticed quite a few dark Tsukasa fics and wanted to jump on the bandwagon. It may come out as being just random crack, though. So please don't bother continuing if you don't like that sort of thing.

My intention is to create a series of semi-connected one-shots, or just an episodic series with the common theme of apocalypse and eldritch abominations in there. Tsukasa is the main character for the first one, at least. May contain OOC characters and controversial politics later on.

Long live random crack.

–

**Chapter 1: Hollow World**

–

2043

The streets of Saitama were desolate. Not a light, not a single movement broke the stillness. Mold grew over the dark houses and deep puddles lay among the frost-cracked streets. The cars which remained rusted quietly where they had been left, on the street or smashed against each other at intersections among the fallen power lines. Overhead, the moon hung in a hazy sky.

Until the sound of rotors broke out across the night.

Soldiers dressed in biohazard suits and armed with assault rifles descended onto the empty streets in teams. They moved off from their transport helicopters cautiously, radioing in reports in muffled voices. Squad leaders waved blinking meters before them, stopping to adjust dials and analyze perimeters. But it was all routine. They had been here before.

The soldiers gathered at the ruins of a high school. Unlike the rest of the town, the school was rubble—a shell of walls, full of concrete slag and twisting metal girders and dust. Some of the buildings had sunken down into their foundations, the jagged remains sticking up out of the cracked pavement.

It was here that the intruders' activity took on new purpose. Equipment gleamed in the moonlight—a backhoe, trucks and shovels and sand-blasters. A mobile command station with a satellite dish. Soldiers sifted through the debris, head-lamps shining from atop their helmets, waving meters over blackened and twisted objects and then carting them off in trays.

Two men lifted away a heavy chunk of cement. Dust rose beneath it. Safe behind his transparent visor, one of the soldiers bent to pick up another chunk and then hesitated. He noticed something. Brushing away the dust carefully, he bent the beam of his head-lamp down and gave a muffled exclamation.

Lying in the middle of the pile of rubble was a piece of twisted yellow ribbon. Despite everything, it looked shiny and clean.

–

2014

_I'm dreaming about dreams I can't remember. It feels like deja vu. All that's left is sunset, cracks in cement and dry grass and falling. Everything stands out clearly, though, every moment._

Tsukasa slept late. She rolled over and over on her pillow, in her sheets, in a quiet room full of stuffed animals. Sunlight fell through the window in a warm bar, unpleasantly hot through the quilt. Outside, a bird was singing.

And she dreamed about a day full of sunlight, that was beautiful but also ordinary and comforting. A past day, somewhere, or a mixture of many past days. Before her mother came to wake her up.

The pavement was hot under the sun. Tsukasa's shoes clapped down on it in firm little steps. A pebble, a crack, she evaded them carefully. From the sunlight into a patch of shade. A car rolled by, and a breeze followed it. Tsukasa heard branches crackle and looked up, briefly.

She looked into the boughs of a tree behind someone's fence, a tangle of branches spreading out from the bole and a great, twisted knot. The sun winked at her through those branches, and then they stirred in the breeze and the wink vanished and reappeared and vanished again between the leaves. Tsukasa craned her head to see if she could follow it, and spotted it twice before the breeze ended and the leaves fell back into stillness.

"Tsukasa! Coming?"

And she realized she had stopped. So she picked up her feet and ran to catch up with her sister on the way to the station. Out, into the clear sunlight. Dry leaves blew down behind her. Her long shadow followed her, dragged out of the temporary veil of shade to run and bounce along the edge of the sidewalk.

_The world is made of moments._

Heat bore down on the school track. Tsukasa stood in the dust and watched her friend Konata run. There was no breeze here. Above her head, the sun floated in the blue sky. There were a few strands of white clouds along the eastern horizon, the longest just curling up toward the middle of the heavens.

Tsukasa watched the dust fly under the feet of the runners. She felt sleepy and hot. The sunlight pressed on her forehead and she knew better than to raise her eyes. If she looked, it would make her sneeze.

She knew, but she did it anyway. Konata was drinking from a water bottle and complaining about the heat. Tsukasa looked up and got an eye-full of sunspots. All she could see was a bright spot swimming in glowing orange heat. Tsukasa glanced down quickly, squinting, and sneezed.

_Each one, just the same._

On the train ride home, Tsukasa sat by the window. The sun was behind her now, and she could see the clouds gathering across the sky. A puffy one and a few thin strands. Not many at all. And there, the dark shape of a jet plane with a cottony trail just beginning to form behind it. Tsukasa only saw it for a moment, though. The train ran on past a tall building and her view was blocked.

Walking home along the sidewalk, she heard the bird chirping again. Tsukasa spotted it sitting up on a power line. She could still feel the sun on her back. The last remnants of the jet plane's trail was dissipating into nothing, off in a corner of the horizon.

Tsukasa went in. And later, as she slept, she dreamed about the heat.

_And never stopping._

When summer vacation came, the cicadas were singing. Tsukasa dragged a giant shadow along the sidewalk. The heat rose and danced in hazy patterns over the pavement. Dust and pollen drifted in the air.

In her room in the evening, Tsukasa lay with her bare feet pressing against the wall and watched the sky turn dark outside her window. The summer sun was slipping down, down, over the horizon. She could feel it, as it slipped away and the anchoring pull broke and the world fell. Forever.

_Just moments._

Another day, Tsukasa went outside at noon. There was a rustle of wings in the air and then a caw. Down the road, the neighbors garbage bin had been overturned and a pair of crows had descended. Tsukasa watched the noisy scavengers peck at the torn plastic bags and vegetable peelings.

A yellow butterfly flew past, quite suddenly, and settled on a branch by the gate. Its wings fluctuated gently, several times, and then froze. Its antennae worked and its little legs lifted up and down. It scraped silently at the wood underneath it and then, inexplicably, beat its silky wings again and flew away. Tsukasa watched it go. The crows called out noisy insults to each other until a car rolled by and chased them away.

The dandelions bloomed in the grassy ditch beside the road home. Among the pale, globular blossoms and the grass and ferns, ants and spiders and wood beetles crawled over each other aimlessly.

Tsukasa looked at the gates of Ryoo High School in the distance and felt a strong sense of deja vu. For a moment, she felt like she was falling. Down through the road and the gravel and sand and down, into a giant dark abyss underneath. Down, down, past the stars and the sun and into the waiting arms of something loathsome and huge that waited far beneath. Falling off.

But it couldn't be. Because everything was normal, and just as it had always been.

_Moments in time._

–

2013

Kagami and Tsukasa were home alone. The rest of the Hiiragi family had gone off to do various things for various reasons, but Tsukasa was sick in bed with a cold and Kagami had stayed behind to look after her. She had homework to do, anyway.

It was an overcast evening, gray skies already deepening into twilight, as Kagami made her way upstairs from the kitchen. She had her sister's dinner, a bowl of potato soup, in her hands. Carefully opening the door to Tsukasa's room, Kagami made her way to her twin's bedside.

Tsukasa lay back against the pillows, holding a wad of tissues up to her nose and sniffing every now and then. A book lay on the covers beside her, but she felt too sick and sticky to read it.

"Tsukasa?" Kagami called softly as she approached, "I brought you some soup. How are you feeling?"

The younger twin sniffed loudly and looked up blearily. " 'M'okay," she said in a croak, and swallowed painfully. "Thanks."

Kagami held out the bowl, but Tsukasa made no move to take it. Sighing, Kagami said, "You need to sit up or you'll spill it."

"Okay..." Slowly, the sick twin pulled herself up to a sitting position with her back against the headboard. Kagami put the soup down on the covers beside her and Tsukasa awkwardly took it. The side of the bowl was hot, though, and Tsukasa winced as she picked it up. Quickly, she leaned forward in order to put it on the nightstand.

Tsukasa's aim was a little inaccurate, because she tried to put the side down on top of an empty box of tissues. Seeing her mistake, she pulled it sideways. The sudden movement sent the side of the bowl over too far and a few drops splashed out onto the nightstand.

"...Sorry," Tsukasa mumbled, setting the bowl done on the flat.

"It's okay," said Kagami, who had been about to intervene. "I'll wipe it up."

"Oneechan," said Tsukasa suddenly, hoarse and weak as she lay back on her pillows. "Do you remember our graduation?"

"I'll get some toilet paper," said Kagami matter-of-factly, and walked out of the room.

Tsukasa lay back on her thin bed and wondered what was under the house. What was holding them up, out of the dark?

Kagami didn't return for a long time, but Tsukasa hardly noticed.

–

"Are you okay?"

Tsukasa picked herself up weakly, and tried to see through the sunspots. "What happened?" she asked, blearily.

"You fell down the steps, just like that!"

"It was so moe."

"Are you all right? You'd better come to the nurse's office..."

Not the steps, thought Tsukasa suddenly. And the world roared in her ears. I'm falling under the school basement and there's something below me.

In the bathroom at home, she looked into the mirror. Her reflection had dark circles under its eyes and it was small, smaller than anyone else. A thin little teenager with big eyes and a dog-eared yellow ribbon sticking up in her hair. Tsukasa smiled, brightly, and her reflection was cute again.

I really am cute, she thought, I have nice friends and a wonderful family and my days are warm and bright. I'll get into a good university and meet a nice boy, and someday I'll get married and have a family of my own.

But those thoughts were a ritual, like walking to school or looking at the sky or eating. Mere moments that came and passed and came again, just the same as ever.

The sense of falling started again as an echo under her feet, with every step out of the bathroom.

–

She woke up late at night, face-down in the tangled sheets. Underneath the thin barrier of the mattress, Tsukasa felt that there was nothing but empty space.

"What's the point?" she asked herself, suddenly, with her nose in the sheets. "Why am I doing all this?"

_I'm tired of these same moments. I want new ones._

Wasn't there something else she was supposed to be doing?

But she couldn't remember. All she could remember were the little moments. All those moments stuck in her head—they all played out together in Tsukasa's imagination. Over and over. Eating and sleeping and walking and sunlight, school, jokes, Kagami, Konata, Miyuki, her sisters, her parents, her family, Ms. Kuroi, everyone...all together. Over and over.

–

Tsukasa sipped her tea carefully. It was a hot, and sweat, and she slurped it down. Then she was too hot.

The dishes crashed down into the sink together. And Tsukasa stuck her hands down into the soapy, boiling water and caught and flailed and pawed at them. And she thought about her last birthday.

"Here, Tsukasa-san."

"Thank you, Yuki-chan! It's...a notebook?"

"It's a journal. I remember you saying you had trouble remembering your thoughts, Tsukasa, so I thought you might want to try keeping one. Many people find it helpful to keep a log of their day-to-day activities."

"Oh...but what should I write?"

"Just whatever you feel like recording. Don't feel pressured—it's supposed to be fun. See, I'll show you. You just start with the date, like this."

"Amazing! That's so cool, Yuki-chan!"

"Thanks, Miyuki, but Tsukasa'll just forget about it come tomorrow."

"Oneechan! I will not. I'll be sure to write in it every day..."

Miyuki's voice faded in and out of Tsukasa's ears. The sunset was a bright sheen in her friend's hair, and the voice and the light and the smell of flowers was an intoxicating moment before it passed. The sky glowed orange and deep red above them.

_It was all a long time ago._

Under empty skies, Tsukasa lay by the little pond where Kagami's fat goldfish circled endlessly. She held the journal up and wrote in it with a blue pen. There were fits and starts and sometimes her pen wavered and cut long lines of ink across the paper. Tsukasa rolled over and put the journal under her elbows.

She wrote about her life until she couldn't go on. It was an exercise in frustration to record the same things that had already been happening for years. So all Tsukasa had left to record were her wishes. I wish the sun wouldn't fall, I wish the ground felt more stable, I wish that horrible feeling wouldn't sit in my stomach. I wish I was in a different world somehow. There's something wrong with this one.

–

2042

_I don't know why._

It was the steps that attracted her. Before there was a door, cleaning materials, some vague mission from the teacher to get a new box of detergent. Tsukasa had never been down to the school basement before, but the idea of a place she'd never been interested her. It was frightening, and dark, but she could see a light switch. And so she went down, step by step, and every one echoed in her ears.

_Why did I fall?_

The space below her was dark, and as she reached out for the light switch she felt her foot hit the step and felt the emptiness underneath. A vast emptiness.

Tsukasa stopped and looked down. Her hand left the wall and fell back down, to her side. Because that feeling, that step and that emptiness were so familiar. She had been here before, had felt that very same thing. So many times. The sense of deja vu was overwhelming.

And she knew that in the past, she had turned and fled back into the comfort of ordinary life on the surface. Of sunlight and pavement and friends' voices. And at some other time, she had descended into the dark. Fallen into it.

This time, she put out her hand to the light switch and flipped it on. But that, too, felt familiar.

And below her, under the steps that ended nowhere, she saw the dark. A huge dark, waiting under her little square window of lighted walls. It stretched out under the hollow crust of the world forever, into perfect blackness without stars. It was an emptiness that made Tsukasa fall to her knees and hold her head and her stomach because she felt so awful and empty. So displaced. And it was the feeling of falling.

Because Tsukasa knew that she had already fallen into that dark once, or perhaps many times before. And she had come back, through some unreal madness of rebirth, to the world of moments that never changed.

When at last she dared look again into the emptiness, she tried to think of the thing below. The huge, awful thing that waited underneath her in the dark. It was such a comforting thought, though, that there was something down there. That some being, some solid consciousness, could exist in that endless void. Tsukasa took comfort in it, trusted in it.

"You're down there, aren't you?" she asked aloud. Her voice came out as a squeaky little whisper.

And in her mind, the thing in the dark replied. It said, 'Y_es, I'm down here. Come down to me, and escape at last_.'

The girl took courage from that, and stood up. She walked slowly down the steps, listening to every echo, until she reached the bottom and looked down into utter darkness.

"Will you catch me?"

But there was no reply.

Tsukasa looked back, over her shoulder, to the door up the stairs. It was open, and light was pouring through. Her friends were up there. Her solid world, even if it was only one layer thick. But it was a forgetful world, that unreal place. And worse, she knew there would be no escape there. No rest from the feeling of falling. And she knew that she had to go somewhere. This was the way out—the only way.

So she dangled her legs off into space like a swimmer and then, very carefully, let go.

Her screams were lost in space, empty space, as she plunged down into miles of nothing. In the end it was a familiar feeling. Falling into the dark. All so absurdly predictable. Tsukasa felt light-headed.

And beneath her, something huge and black as the night around it shifted around. The monster inside the hollow world coiled and stretched and looked up, toward the tiny falling human.

_So you came again, _it said, with a vast resignation that Tsukasa could feel in her bones. _We're getting too big, down here. There's too many._

Why? Tsukasa wondered. Why did this happen?

_Don't you remember?_

–

Tsukasa had said, "I wish I was the main character."

The world stopped. Voices distorted and then died. The horizon turned red and tinted the ground scarlet. Tsukasa froze utterly still, every cell in her body stopped as surely as if she had been immersed in liquid nitrogen. Everything and everyone halted around her, utterly still.

And in that sudden silence, the echoes of her little comment echoed again and again before dying, a quarter of a second later—

—when the world restarted. The sound of Tsukasa's mumbling remark was fading in her ears. The sky flashed back to its natural color and everybody went on with their business. Tsukasa blinked and went on with gym class. A slight, very slight, sense of unease stayed with her until she forgot about the feeling a few hours later.

But on another day, she said, "I wonder what it would be like if I was the older sister?"

The sun exploded. The earth's core blazed up with a power that scorched up through the rock and soil as billions of cracks of heat so intense it turned the world to ash. Tsukasa remained still, her lips melted and blackened into cinders in the tiny time that remained before she was blown away into nothing. But that time never came because—

—time turned back and the world went on. The sun reformed in an instant and the heat died. Everything that had been displaced flowed back into its old position, clashed together in perfect approximation of how it had been a micro-second before the sudden apocalypse, and was still.

Tsukasa blinked her eyes, sighed wistfully, and went on with her homework.

But then, months later, she said, "Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if things were different?"

The universe changed.

–

Falling down into the arms of the monster inside the nothingness of the hollow world, Tsukasa remembered it. Her wishes, under the red horizon and the sun and the core of the world.

_I sacrificed them, to make you. _

And waiting below in infinity, she saw the true form of the thing that she had written and wished into existence. Her tears slipped away from her eyes and fell with her in the dark. The being below coiled its innumerable falling, dead, suspended, starving bodies and looked back at her with eyes made out of millions of potential, past, pointless universes. All the moments of Tsukasa's life and all the lives she could have lived were frozen there in its hollow eyes.

Quite literally, because they were made of dead and dying versions of herself.

_Why did you fall, too? Can't you stop? _

Am I real? Tsukasa wondered, looking back. Did I make the wishes, write these things into existence in my journal? Or was I the one made?

It didn't matter. She was already falling. Was this the end? "Is this it?" she shouted down into the dark. "Is this all there is?"

_Yes, _said the monster. _But you can escape. _

"Then let me go!"

And it did. The monster uncoiled its mountainous arms made of rotting flesh and hurled Tsukasa back, up through the abyss, and into the light. The impact destroyed the school and tore the ribbon from her hair.

But it was, after all, a hollow world.

–

**Author's note:**

Thanks for reading. I thought of this as a kind of prologue to set the tone for what's to come—lots more transitions and sentence fragments, for a start. As a word of warning, though, the second chapter will probably be very different from this and probably even sillier.

–


	2. For Those Left Behind: Part I

**Lucky Apocalypse Stories:**

I'm back. The first part in a short series this time, with the theme of nuclear war. It's got guns and gore and swearing, eventually, so that's different.

–

**Chapter 2: For Those Left Behind: Part I**

–

_Do you think that people are really unique? I mean, do you think that there's any experience you can have that hasn't been shared by billions of other people already? I don't mean if you can see something or do something unique. It's what you get from it that I'm questioning. What feeling? What reaction? Isn't that much more ordinary? A child feels joy running in the grass and then forgets it. A scientist feels joy discovering a new particle and then has to live with the nostalgia._

_Come to think of it, isn't that why we keep writing stories and making movies and taking pictures? So people can experience the same kinds of feelings, over and over again until we die? You could say it feels a little different each time, but isn't that just a trick of memory? I don't know._

_My world is falling to dust underneath me. It was hollow and used up and now it's broken. And all I feel is dull relief, because at least now I can stop pretending to live. _

_Maybe I'm just a boring person. _

_Floating here in the blackness of space, far below the stars, I don't know anymore what year it is or what I'm expected to do. There is no time here. I don't know if I'm alive or dead and maybe this is death. Science was never my strong suit, but I don't think humans can normally breathe in space._

_But I don't even know why I'm here, in this timeless void where nothing feels real. What did I do wrong? _

_I'm trying to remember._

–

The nuclear bombers skimmed high above the clouds, out of sight, out of contact, looking down on distant coasts. The submarines plowed deep under the seas for months on end, secret, patient, loaded and ready. The missiles in dark silos or aboard massive trucks pointed up to the sky and stood in lonely silhouette.

And they all waited for the apocalypse, perfectly ready for that moment to finally come. When they would be used. When the human ants creeping arrogantly across the surface of the world would finally understand what was in store for them. Death comes for everything in the end, so let the end be now. Before the rust and the decay and the dimming of age slows everything down and makes it halfhearted.

Isolated in the grip of their machines of destruction, the operators held themselves still and awaited orders or accidents. It was lonely work, but they prided themselves on their loyalty and in some cases, perhaps, their sense of justice. Let the end come, they might have thought to themselves, so long as it comes fairly. We will die, but so too will our opponents.

–

Konata was twenty-three years old when games stopped being fun.

The question of 'why bother?' had never before troubled the diminutive otaku girl. Everything she did was for its own sake. In the short-term, she had lots of goals like collecting action figure sets or completing so many levels or reading everything in such and such a series. Ultimately, though, Konata's only goal was to have fun.

But when the animated explosions stopped being exciting, the characters in exposed bras and panties stopped being sexy, and the action became a boring grind, she started to wonder.

It was gradual, at first. The daily chores of her current MMO just became more and more uninteresting as her online friends drifted away. Konata thought at first that simple loneliness was the problem, until she realized she was making less and less effort to pursue her friends or make new ones. Dungeon crawling, selling and buying items and managing character stats just no longer appealed to her. Her characters were all at max level already and she didn't feel like making any more. She was tired of it all.

Other games filled the void for awhile, but after a few months all her high scores and killing streaks in titles like Team Fortress or the latest Call of Duty began to blend together. Indie horror games and old RPG favorites took their place, but Konata found all of them less exciting somehow. Putting in hours and hours on any game began to seem like work and Konata grew bored of it. She fell out of her gaming habit. The icons on her desktop went unclicked.

Visual novels weren't the same, but even they didn't seem that amusing anymore. She became tired of all the recurring archetypes. Tsunderes, meganekos, onee-samas, childhood friends and jealous younger sisters—Konata had seen them all a hundred times already and she found herself rolling her eyes at their familiar antics. It was all a bit too boring and easy, anyway. The new games were too flashy and pandering, the old ones were too lengthy and ponderous.

Konata moved on.

Living and working alone in her one-room apartment full of otaku paraphernalia, she was financially independent and doing what she loved. She also had plenty of free time. With the internet at her fingertips, she could find endless things to amuse herself with. Even if games weren't fun anymore, there were other things for her to do.

But bit by bit, Konata grew tired of them all. She got sick of waiting for the latest manga chapters, she fell out of interest in cosplay and miniature-collecting and anime. She got bored of talking to her friends about them and so got bored of her friends. Konata had made her living doing a variety of work, from working at cafes and cons to professional gaming to coding and translating. But when she grew tired of the otaku lifestyle, she also grew tired of the effort behind it.

Inexorably, Konata's work became boring to her as well. And for the first time, she felt afraid.

It's needless to talk about all the half-fun things, the moments of dwindling nostalgia, the particular places she went or the people she struck up halfhearted friendships with. It's not necessary to talk about the lengths Konata went to in order to revive her interest in old hobbies or find new ones to enjoy.

It's not necessary, because it became a blur even to Konata. A lot of things that had once been fun but no longer were. And she began to feel that, looking back, all her life had been like that. She had done the same things, over and over, and now she barely even remembered them.

Sitting alone at her computer at night, Konata clicked through long articles and was bored and listened to music she no longer noticed and wondered why she wasn't doing something better. And then she did the same thing again, because in fact she didn't know what _would_ be better.

The fear subsided, bit by bit, but in its place came boredom and a sense of complacency that sometimes resembled defeat.

–

By the time she was twenty-five, Konata had almost forgotten what it felt like to genuinely care about anything. She had broadened her interests. Now she spent hours watching the TV news with listless eyes, listening to an anchor cataloging international reactions to the Prime Minister's war speech or peering at footage of naval drills underway in the north-Pacific. She looked up military statistics and history articles online, read long essays theorizing on the dire state of world affairs, or who would win the war, or which country was going to become the most powerful.

It was superficial. Politics, like so many other things, were a banal taste in Konata's mouth. A waste of time and energy she never truly cared about. And she moved on, soon enough, to other issues. There were relatively more exciting pastimes, but nothing that felt truly fresh. Konata's energy began to desert her. She began to sleep in, to neglect work, to lay on her bed looking at the ceiling. And, paradoxically, as she grew more lazy she felt more restless.

She began to think about Kagami again.

Years ago, after graduating from high school, Konata had gotten her first apartment and become self-employed. At first it wasn't unusual for Kagami to visit on break, but the distance became a problem. The two friends had grown apart little by little, until they hardly saw each other anymore.

Until one day, when Kagami arrived unexpectedly and in a state of high agitation. Her eyes had been red from lack of sleep and her hair, now held up in a tall ponytail, had been dirty and frizzled. And she'd been trembling and clenching her fists. But she'd refused to say anything until Konata sat down and agreed to listen silently.

Then Kagami had thrown herself down on her knees and told Konata that she was in love with her, that she was hopelessly lonely, that she couldn't stand it anymore. With tears in her eyes, Kagami had announced that she had dropped out of college and gotten a job at a supermarket. She had some plan that would allow her and Konata to get an apartment together, and they could be together again every day and so on.

Konata hadn't known what to say. It was all ridiculous, of course, but she couldn't say that. Sensibly, she had decided to engage Kagami's flow of words at what she regarded as their least sensitive point, tease her a bit, make conversation, and calm the tsundere down. It was what she had always done.

So, jokingly, Konata had informed Kagami that she goofed around a lot, really, but she wasn't actually into girls.

If Konata had been smiling when she had said it, it was because that expression was her default for dealing with crises. It was a protection. If her voice had been too casual, it had been because she was confused and trying to stay calm. And at any rate, she had neither expected nor deserved what had happened next.

Kagami had become utterly silent. Then she had screamed in rage and punched Konata in the face before running out of the apartment sobbing and shouting.

Even then, Konata had almost enjoyed this arch-stereotypical display. She had assumed that Kagami, being a tsundere, would get over it and they would be friends again in no time.

They hadn't. Konata had never heard from Kagami again, though it wasn't that remarkable since they had already been growing apart. It was just the way life went. Konata certainly hadn't held a grudge, but she had been busy with other things and newer friends. She kept putting off getting back in touch with Kagami or her other high school friends again. Her black eye had healed and she had forgotten about it.

But now, Konata found herself thinking about Kagami again for the first time in years. Not so much about Kagami herself, their friendship had become just another banal nostalgia to Konata, but about Kagami on that last day. For the first time, she thought she might understand what her old friend had been feeling. Konata had always been laid back. She had always known what she wanted to do and how to do it. Desperate and hasty people had amused her.

No more. Konata had become unhappy and desperate, too. The pathetic sympathy she felt thinking of Kagami's antics was enough to prove it. Konata had lost sight of what she wanted and her life had lost its luster. She, too, was lonely and bored and didn't know what to do.

On holidays, she would visit her father at home. Usually it was fun. Soujirou had remarried and the house Konata had grown up in was full of three young children. She liked playing with them, but sometimes they reminded Konata that she was an adult now. A responsible person with grown-up things to do and grown-up fun to have. But the person she saw reflected in the starry eyes of the children did not fit either image.

Beyond that, her father had developed an obsession with conspiracy theories and her step-mother was fanatical about new age medicine and herbology. They both pushed so many 'subversive' books, movies and smelly ointments on Konata that she felt more badgered every time she got together with them.

And no matter how much fun she had on holidays, Konata always had to come home to her apartment in the end. Because there was work to do and bills to pay and off-hours to while away doing nothing. And then she felt miserable again.

Impulsively, she began to take long walks through the city. There wasn't much to see. Tokyo had become more somber in recent years and Konata was far from being interested in passing cars and random people anyway. She'd had her fill of touring the otaku hotspots years ago, as well, and going there felt like going to work. The new roadblocks and military installations were entertaining at first, but quickly became commonplace.

Still, walking gave Konata something to do for a time. She kept up the habit until the curfew was imposed and the feeling of having to hurry home in the evenings became too annoying to withstand. Having to remember to darken her windows at night became too troublesome, as well, so she just bought black curtains and closed them permanently.

After that, she stayed inside and lazed in her chair or on her bed. Work dried up, and she had to borrow money from her father to pay for rent and food. Konata didn't mind, besides the bother of having to give a lot of boring reassurances that she was okay. The news was all about super-serious diplomatic something or others and the social media sphere was all exploding with the latest panic. The internet had been massively censored because of the emergency. Konata couldn't work up the energy to care.

So she lay on her bed and felt deeply, deeply tired and bored. The ceiling was boring. The walls were boring. All the books and movies on her shelves were boring. Her phone was boring, her computer was boring, her TV and her gaming systems were boring, her bed itself was boring. Konata felt in turns restless and melancholy, but she didn't have the energy to give vent to either feeling very much.

She felt that she had once lived in a bright, vibrant world where she had been a hero on a quest, with true friends beside her and terrible dangers looming before her. That world had been glorious, but now it was irrefutably lost.

Konata couldn't even bring herself to wallow in self-pity very much. The world of olden times was just a feeling in the back of her head. A reminder that she wasn't having fun any more, that she was wasting her time, that she never thought about anything interesting or funny like she used to. That she couldn't find anything interesting or funny to do anymore.

The last thing Konata got really bored of was conversation. The phone would ring and she would feel too tired and annoyed to answer it. Unanswered messages began to build up like the unopened letters and bills she pushed under the table. It was just too irritating to reply to them, too bothersome to listen to other people's nonsense or pretend to care about their concerns. Konata had done it all before and she had had enough.

So she lay there and felt miserable. Nothing was fun anymore and nothing happened. Even the landlord had stopped badgering her. Air raid sirens shrieked intermittently all night long, but she had learned to ignore them.

–

It was dark outside. Konata lay in her smelly, mussed-up sheets and stared at the dim ceiling. The only light in the room was the screen of her laptop, playing an endless screen-saver of the SOS Brigade dancing.

And then, suddenly, Konata was blinded by a light from behind her curtains. It was a white flash, brilliant like lightning except that it lasted longer than a second. On the contrary, after the flash it turned golden as the morning sun and grew even brighter. There was a quarter-second of total silence. But before that second of light was over, Konata felt and heard it. And it was hot, painfully hot, even through walls.

Her monitor winked out. The floor shook like a leaf in a storm and Konata sprang up as her bed hit the wall and her shelves crashed down in ruin. A great, slow, roaring noise had begun in her ears—the sum of all thunder rolled together into one constant sound. There were screams and cries and the screech of car alarms from outside, but they were drowned out and thrown away before the great roar.

Konata got up, blinking away bright spots and trying to stay upright as the building shook. And to her immense surprise, in the light and the heat and the roaring, Konata felt awake for the first time in years.

She didn't wait to think. She didn't feel any fear or regret. Konata ran to the door and pulled it open. And disregarding the heat and the painful light, she stumbled out onto the walkway and looked out over the railing.

A great cloud of fire was rising over a dark Tokyo. A hazy, roaring cloud as high as the horizon. The red bulges of flame were hot even from miles away, and they covered what must have been miles and still rose higher and spread wider in ring on ring of flame. As Konata watched, more explosions broke out and bloomed and made the cloud rise higher and thicker and rush outward glowing brighter and brighter flashing painfully white—

The hot wind struck Konata with a force that slammed her back against her door as it slammed shut. The windows shattered and Konata's ears burst in a ringing, hot moment of pain. Another huge light was rising, this one from behind her. There were no stars above, no voices or sounds but the ringing and no light but fire.

Konata understood that it was all over as she got to her feet and grabbed the railing again, bloodily, adrenaline overcoming the pain of her ears and her bruised back and head. And she stared at the great fireballs that were swallowing up humanity.

"This is the end of the world!" she shouted suddenly into the sky, though she couldn't hear herself. "This is it! It's finally happened! We're all dead!"

She realized the things even as she said them, as the night turned to day around her and more fireballs rose and the air boiled and the whole apartment complex shuddered on its foundations.

For the first time since she had been a teenager, Konata was so excited she was shouting. This was it. Something had finally happened and it was a new day and she felt energetic! No more constraints, no more whiling away her life doing nothing over and over. Konata looked around for someone to share the news with and, seeing nobody, she ran down into the street.

She hadn't gone mad. Konata knew she was about to die, that this was the end of her life and everything and everyone she cared about. But what can you do when you know you're doomed and there's no way to avoid it? What are you going to do when the cruel and infinite universe reaches out and crushes you like an ant? Lie down and whimper?

No! Konata realized what she would do as her bare feet flew under her on the trembling, steaming-hot iron of the apartment stair. She was going to die with dignity. Her thoughts flowed fast and clear and she felt her old, certain grin back on her face. And she couldn't help but imagine what was in store next. All her old manga and anime and movies came back to her in an instant.

She was about to turn into a mutant of some kind, a desperate survivor changed in the glowing radioactive rubble of the capital! An outcast, cursed with glowing eyes and psychic powers, or tentacles and goo, or maybe a ghost. And everyone would be terrified of her. She would wander the fractured earth alone and ostracized, but defeating bad guys in increasingly awesome encounters. And a bunch of high school girls would inevitably run screaming away, tripping and showing their panties and then she would save them from some baddie as perversely as possible...

Konata reached the bottom of the stairs and ran out into the street. She didn't see anyone among the deserted cars. Her heart thundered in her ears and the hot ash burned her lungs, but she felt so alive. She had to say something. So she raised her arms to the rising fireball and defied it.

"HEY YOU! FUCK YOU FIREBALL!" she screamed up at it. "TO HELL WITH IT! YOU DON'T KNOW ME! FIGHT! BELIEVE IT! MY DRILL WILL PIERCE YOUR HEAVENS, SO LOOK OUT! BANZAI! BANZAI! BANKAI! COME ON. YOU CAN'T TAKE ME! KONATA VI BRITANNIA COMMANDS YOU TO GO TO HELL!"

Konata's ears rang. Shockwaves carried away her weak, nasal voice in blistering gusts. But though she tottered, she stood tall against the apocalyptic flames, screaming and yelling slogans and pop culture references over and over as the mushroom clouds bloomed up before her. Konata didn't stop. She didn't feel regret or get frightened. She was doing this for its own sake.

And for a moment, she felt that the world belonged to her. The starless dark and the empty city with its scalding air and its flaming doom rising above it. It was all Konata's, her world reborn and her will alone standing against the fire.

Then another missile hit and the blast struck her like an unstoppable boiling wall and hurled her away.

–

A buzz of static. The heavy click of lights coming on and the sound of gears churning and industrial-strength cables unwinding at speed. A dignified male voice.

"...And to the ones left behind, I can only say this. Your sacrifice will not be in vain! We will return. We will rebuild Japan and we will take revenge for all of you. I cannot ask you to forgive us, so I can only assure you—I can only assure you that you will never be forgotten!"

In the harsh yellow light of a flood lamp, an elderly man in a suit was speaking into a microphone. Dark metal walls flashed by behind him.

"Our enemies know what they have done this day! They have payed tenfold already, and they will pay more. Our retribution, our final retribution, will not come today, but it will come. Because we, the people of Japan, we will rise up from the ashes! We will make a new day and rebuild our country stronger and brighter than ever. Have we not already endured the worst horrors the world has ever seen? Have we not fallen before, many times, only to rise anew?"

The speaker choked on emotion, battled through it.

"The sacrifice we have all made today is beyond words and beyond understanding. But I know that despite all that, I can swear to you this...that no day, never, can break our country! Nothing, not even this, will break our will! And for the rest, I leave it to the historians and the philosophers. Only know, people of Japan, that we are far from finished on this Earth—!"

And then he coughed, swallowed uncomfortably, and had to stop.

The Prime Minister clenched his fist, blinking away tears, as he finished taping his last TV interview on the elevator.

Specifically, a huge circular elevator sinking deep, deep down through the earth. Far above, the latest in a series of vast metal blast doors slammed shut over the top of the mine shaft. The elevator creaked and bumped on its way down, into the deepest bomb shelter in Japan.

The Prime Minister lowered the microphone and switched it off. "That's enough now, son," he said to the security agent holding up the camera and recording equipment. "I'm tired and it might not get played anyway. We'll finish up later."

With a sigh, the aging politician adjusted his tie and turned to the rest of his current entourage. The cabinet and their families had temporarily separated on their journey into post-apocalyptic hiding. Right now, it was just the PM himself with his four suited bodyguards and a small group of civilians he had selflessly rescued from the nuclear holocaust.

There were five civilians. Of course, it was sheer coincidence that they were all beautiful, fertile young women under the age of thirty. Or that was the official line, anyway. The prime minister was from the war party, after all, and he had learned to live with keeping certain secrets.

The girls were huddled together, exhausted and traumatized. The few who had life in their eyes glared at the Prime Minister with hatred. He had chosen to leave their families and friends behind, and he knew that galled them. They didn't yet understand hard but necessary choices.

Probably they could use a word of comfort, though. Putting on his most compassionate smile, the Prime Minister walked slowly over to the huddle. "And how are you doing, ladies?" he asked gently. "A silly question at a time like this, isn't it? But that's all we have now. Just silly questions."

He cleared his throat, scanning them. He had his eye on the two at the front—a pair of twin purple-haired shrine maidens they'd picked up on someone's recommendation. They were a bit past the optimal age for childbearing, but he supposed some concessions to culture had to be made.

The larger of the pair, who wore her hair in a long ponytail, was actually dressed in a kimono. And she was looking up at the prime minister with an expression of sheer hatred. Her teeth were clenched between split and bloody lips and her bloodshot eyes were hard—too hard. The other, short-haired sister held her twin's arm, muttering desperate little nothings in a mantra.

The Prime Minister didn't like that look. He looked away from it uncomfortably and decided to go on. "Well, it's a hard time for all of us," he said eventually. "But there's some good news, young ladies." He scanned the collected girls again as the elevator bumped and jolted under them, raising his voice to get their attention. "We are descending now into a secure complex, deep underground. My family will be there, as well as the rest of the cabinet. You won't be lonely." He smiled at them.

There was no reply. They stared back with disgust and despair.

The Prime Minister supposed that at least he didn't have to deal with complaints. "Inside the complex is enough food and water to last us all a life time," he went on gently. "And we'll be safe from any kind of radioactive fallout. There's a gymnasium, a pool, even a park. It's really a huge place. I know you don't feel like it, but after this your worries will really be over. You won't even need to work, if you don't want to. You've earned it, don't you think?"

Still no reply. The Prime Minister wasn't used to being ignored, and he didn't like it. The cold glare of the miko with the ponytail caught his eye, and it irritated him. To be treated like this, after all he done for her. All he had done for the ungrateful public, ruining his life and his health for thirty years. He turned to her sharply.

"How about you, dear?" he asked. "What do you think?"

The woman opened her bloody mouth like a trap. "Go to hell!" she hissed, and it was a thick, viscous noise.

Well well, thought the Prime Minister grimly. Shameful behavior for a woman her age. Perhaps it's time for a lesson in manners, rather than comfort. And he raised his free hand in a gesture that might have seemed casual, but which was in fact a signal.

–

"Kagami, please..." Tsukasa put her hand on Kagami's shoulder. "It's okay..." But she knew it wasn't okay. It hadn't been okay for years. And the Prime Minister had an ugly look on his face and one of his bodyguards was stepping forward.

"What did you just say?" All at once he was standing over them, leaning down, a big muscular man with a set jaw under his sunglasses and his hands on his hips over a belt with a black pistol holster. Behind him, the Prime Minister was a lofty, sneering presence of waxy lips curled into a frown.

And this time, Kagami wasn't going to calm down. Instead she threw off Tsukasa's hand and stood up.

"I said..."Kagami's lip curled, and her voice was a slow and deliberate provocation this time. "I said, go to hell...shitbag!" The agent snarled and started to surge forward and then it all went to hell.

A fast movement, a lightning twist and a grunt from the guard, and Kagami had the bulky man on the floor in front of her with his hand behind his back and then she had him down under her knee.

"Woah! What the hell—stop!"

He made a comically confused noise. Him, the symbol of authority, finding himself suddenly helpless and pinned underneath a girl in a silly robe. A victim. The other agents were momentarily frozen, the PM was slaw-jacked. Then the men shouted and, confronted by a serious threat, instinctively went for their guns.

Kagami was faster. Her hand whipped instantly to the fallen agent's holster and came up with his automatic cocked. And there was another second where Kagami had one hand on the kneeling agent's wrist and the other swinging the gun up and her finger was tearing the safety off with familiar expertise and anything could have happened.

The Prime Minister saw what was happening right in front of him. That he was about to have a gun pointed at him and a hostage situation. He proved his hawkish credentials in an instant. Blurting something like 'Put that down, young lady!' he stumbled forward past his trapped bodyguard and grabbed for Kagami's arm.

She shot him in the side of the chest, from an inch away.

The Prime Minister staggered as the shot rang out and behind Kagami, Tsukasa's eyes went wide in mad panic. The gun bucked in Kagami's iron grip and spat fire twice more, ascending shots as her arm rose. One hit the PM in the heart and the second blew out his neck in a spray of blood.

Tsukasa screamed, screamed until her ears burned. The PM stopped, and stumbled sideways with eyes rolling in his head, and then went down choking and clutching his throat as he drowned in gore. The huddled girls began to cry out, to leap stiffly up and run somewhere. Most of them.

The agents yelled in confusion and impotency and ran forward. One shot and Kagami ducked down behind the convulsing PM. The agent under her writhed, but the miko turned and put him down with a shot to the back of the head. Blood flew up and splattered Kagami's clench-toothed grin. His hand clutched at her robe and then fell still. It only took a second.

Then Kagami stood up with the gun in both hands and opened fire. She was a rare talent. Every shot felled an agent. Here, the closest one idiotically dragging the PM back—there's a red hole blasted in his forehead. His finger twitches on the trigger of his own pistol and one shot tears across the side of Kagami's chest and hits some unlucky girl sitting dead-eyed and comatose behind her. The rest go up at the ceiling as he pitches backward.

The second, behind him, was slow on taking off his safety. His gun's up but he's still fiddling with it as Kagami's bullet slams into his left breast and three-quarters of the way through his hidden bullet-proof vest. The impact throws him backwards.

The miko's arm jerks sideways with robotic precision. The third agent fires, desperately, but he's one-handed and his shot goes too low and hits the PM's shoulder instead of Kagami's chest. Instead, it's her bullet that takes him between the eyes and blows his brain out.

Last agent, busy with the recording equipment. He had his back turned when it happened and he tripped over the camera and fell. Accidents happen even to the best of us. He's just got his gun out of the holster when Kagami fires, too fast for any civilian he's supposed to be supervising, and tears out his throat with a round from his comrade's automatic.

The shots echoed and the shell casings rolled. The bodies fell and twitched and staggered. They moaned and shat and clutched in their pitiful dying moments. Kagami gritted her teeth even harder against the line of blazing pain in her side and walked forward. She expended one more bullet, finishing off the man she'd shot in the chest. And then she turned, wide sleeves flying out like sails, to glance back at her sister. And she was grit-toothed and dripping with blood and her fists were clenched like death on her stolen gun.

Tsukasa was frozen where she stood, legs shaking helplessly. Her own screams still rang in her ears, but she had stopped. She knew it was all over, with a finality that made everything pointless. But she still had to try.

"Kagami!" she called out to the devil before her, pleading, accusing. "Kagami why? Why did you do that? Why?" Tsukasa knew why, but she had to ask. The crime was too monumental to go unquestioned.

Kagami's bloodshot, dilated, hard eyes focused on Tsukasa and there was nothing but a kind of cold, itemizing judgment in them. Not a shred of guilt or sympathy.

"They were men," she said, in a voice that was still low and hateful but just a bit louder with victorious rage and satisfaction. "They were going to hurt you, Tsukasa. Don't you know?" Kagami's head tilted, and the devil's grin stretched out in full view. "Men ruin everything for girls. Girls start liking boys and abandon their friends forever. But now, we'll finally be rid of them."

Tsukasa stared back with a lump in her throat. Tears spilled out of her ears and ran in salty channels down her cheeks. "Why?" she asked again, but it came out as a croak. "That's not an answer!"

But Kagami's mad eyes were already moving past and roving across the elevator until, horribly, they stopped on a cluster of terrified, victimized girls huddled together behind the fallen camera equipment. Shrinking innocents, who stared back at the killer with eyes full of terror and whimpered.

Kagami regarded them. "That man said there would be enough supplies down here to last our lifetimes," she said slowly, considerately. "But men are liars. They are all liars. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to go too."

The horror was too much for Tsukasa to comprehend. She didn't move, couldn't move, until she saw Kagami raising the gun again. Then she screamed and ran forward, desperately, to jump on her sister and stop her.

Kagami threw her twin down easily, one-handed, and Tsukasa hit the metal floor hard and cracked her head and curled up into a ball. Helpless. She clutched her hands over her ears and screamed and sobbed as the shots rang out above her again and again. And she shut her eyes tight. Pray for home, Tsukasa, she thought, pray for home. This isn't really happening.

She lay there for what felt like a long time, quaking and clenching her eyes. The shooting finally stopped and the elevator jolted and thumped into an absurdly soothing descent. Tsukasa lay there whimpering to herself hysterically, while Kagami moved methodically across the bloody floor stuffing all the agents' guns and spare ammunition magazines into her sash.

Tsukasa didn't know. She didn't want to know. She felt nothing, heard nothing, until she heard Kagami's footsteps stop beside her. And then she felt Kagami's hand stroke her head tenderly. Her sister was kneeling beside her. Tsukasa didn't dare look up, but she trembled.

"Shhh, Tsukasa, don't cry," said Kagami, and her hoarse voice was soft and sweet again. "It's going to be all right. This elevator's about to stop, and I just want you to stay here while I take care of some bad people. But don't worry! I won't let them hurt you." And the madness was back in her voice. "I'll never...I'll never betray you, Tsukasa! And you'll never betray me, will you?"

Tsukasa wouldn't, couldn't answer. She shivered. Kagami's hand stroked her hair again. "I know you won't. You're too kind, little sister."

That was the voice of kindness again, of childhood days and jokes and rare affectionate moments from Tsukasa's responsible big sister who had always protected her.

What could Tsukasa do? She opened her eyes and looked up. Kagami looked down at her with warm eyes, and for a moment Tsukasa did not see the blood stains on her sister's cheeks and teeth or the torn scabs on her lips.

"Just wait there, Tsukasa," said Kagami gently. Then the elevator gave a final jolt and came to a stop. Kagami stood up in a shower of beautiful, embroidered robes with blood-soaked hems and turned toward the doors, a gun in each hand. Tsukasa looked up at her.

"Wait!" she croaked, suddenly and immediately worried. "Your side...! Oneechan you're hurt!"

Kagami paused and glanced down. The line where the bullet had grazed her was still bleeding, and it had soaked through her kimono in a dark fold of bunched fabric. She looked back at Tsukasa and smiled fondly. "It's fine," she said. "It's just a scratch. Don't worry."

And with that last word, Kagami turned her head away and walked to the doors in the wall. They were metal blast doors, but they opened to a key code—old fashioned, to be reliable—and Kagami had already found a note on it in the Prime Minister's wallet. She punched the numbers in and they creaked open. A dim passage opened its maw.

"Oneechan!" Tsukasa called out, hoarse and pathetic. "Wait!" She didn't want the moment to end, she didn't want the devil Kagami to come back. She didn't want to be left alone in the slaughterhouse.

Kagami never replied. She walked through the doors and her long ponytail snapped behind her like the end of a snake. You look like a samurai, Tsukasa thought suddenly and absurdly. Then Kagami was in the dim passage and the doors slammed shut behind her.

–

Tsukasa wouldn't stay. Never. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the doors and tried to pull them open. She shouted and begged and whimpered and banged on the metal. But it was a long time before she thought to look at the Prime Minister's corpse and found the code for the keypad still sticking out of the wallet, which lay beside his cold hands where Kagami had left it.

By that time, the muffled sound of shooting had stopped.

Tsukasa ventured out into a complex that was already silent and stinking of blood and death. The cabinet and their families and their bodyguards were in the main room, the auditorium. They were all dead, some with their necks snapped and some with bullets in their heads or throats. Kagami and the Minister of Defense lay beside each other, still staring at each other with empty eyes, their dead hands clamped to their guns. They had both emptied their last bullets into each other.

The complex was still except for the drip of blood. Hard, pale lights shown down on the tangled carnage and lit it in every detail. Tsukasa collapsed to her knees beside Kagami's body and screamed until she lost consciousness.

It wasn't until the next day that Tsukasa was awakened by the faint but persistent echo of thumping. Hands and fists beating again and again on steel walls and doors.

She found the other girls locked up behind the tiny hospital area, where a dead doctor had prepared beds with straps and IV drips. There were twenty girls and they were desperate, with bloody hands and hollow cheeks. The bodyguards had told them that they had been saved to be breeding stock. They were not sad at the fate of their hosts.

But they were all strangers to Tsukasa, all but one. She couldn't believe her eyes when somebody tripped out of the storage room and she saw the pink hair and glasses. Miyuki had cut her hair short and she had a burn on her cheek, but when she saw Tsukasa the life returned to her eyes.

There were a lot of bodies to push into the incinerators, later on, and a lot of blood and filth and shell casings to clean up, but Miyuki helped Tsukasa say farewell to Kagami. And afterward, because they had little else to do, they wrote memorials for the slain. They wrote that the Prime Minister and his cabinet had been reckless warmongers who had scourged the world and then hidden while others payed the price. They found the names of the bodyguards and the politicians' families from their wallets, though, and put their pictures together in a little shrine.

Tsukasa wrote something different about her sister. She made a private shrine in her room in the dormitories, with Kagami's picture and a lock of her hair and a piece of her kimono that had been cut off by bullets. And she tried to write something about her sister, the devil who the other girls called their savior (who might well have killed them all).

One time, Tsukasa wrote:

_There are some people in this world who won't let go of the past. People who are too loyal to their friends to forget them and let time sweep away the pain. Not everyone can accept the loneliness of growing apart, of leaving comrades behind and betraying commitments made in good faith—no matter how childish._

_I think my sister was one such person. In the end, she refused to accept that her precious friends had drifted away. I think she felt that it was outrageous that she was expected to move on and put it all behind her, just as if it had all meant nothing. That made her angry, and the anger changed her forever._

_It's ironic, because my sister was strong. Far stronger than me, or anyone else I've ever known. She never let anybody hurt her, or intimidate her, not even in the middle of apocalypse. But in the end, it was just ordinary life that was too much._

Tsukasa looked at what she had written, and then wadded it up into a ball and threw it away. And later, waking up crying in the night, she wrote:

_So let this be a memorial. _

_For all the ones who didn't get better._

_The ones who carried on until the bitter end, seeing only their own insanity in front of them._

_Until they died, alone and hateful, betrayed by everyone and betraying everyone._

_And let this be a memorial for our savior, who rescued us all from the rule of tyrants and bullies. _

_And who took action, when we lay down._

She threw that one away, too.

But she kept trying, even though over time her memorials turned into biographies which turned into letters.

_Hey, Kagami, _Tsukasa wrote.

_Or should that be 'yo'? Well, it's been a few years since that last time. I'm still living down here in the complex at the bottom of the mine shaft. We just call it 'home' now. The Prime Minister didn't lie—there's enough supplies here for a hundred years at least, Miyuki says. The radiation hasn't gotten down here, either, so we're all okay. _

_There isn't a lot to do. Some of the others keep busy with big projects like writing histories of the war or learning Aramaic in the library. Others, like Akira, want to try to go back outside and find other survivors. We haven't decided yet when to do that, but they're training every day. Sometimes I think I'll join them. Maybe I can become brave like you._

_Miyuki is one of the busiest. She's taken over the computer lab and the hospital area. Apparently, the doctors here have stored a big collection of sperm samples and stem cells in the big refrigerators. There's some kind of solar generator above-ground that keeps the power running, so they're still cold. _

_According to Miyuki, she's trying to get it so that anyone who wants to can have children. And if nobody does, she's even talking about growing babies out of test tubes. I don't really understand, but she seems to think that even if we can't go out during our life times, maybe we can have healthy children who will carry on after us. She said this was a...a feminist utopia, I think? I don't know if it's that wonderful. There have been some bad quarrels, but mostly everyone does seem to get along._

_We're all grateful to be alive. Or we are now. _

_I didn't think at first that I could go on without you, Kagami, but now I know that I can. If there's one thing that I've learned from this, it's that life is fragile. I might die any time. So there's no need to hurry it on. And maybe I can enjoy a few moments, while I'm still here._

_I still miss you, Kagami. More than I ever did. Everyone misses you. Every day I think of what you would do and say, if you were here with me. At first I thought a lot about the bad things, but I don't anymore. In the end, it's pretty pathetic to let all the good times be swept away by the bad. And I did the worst things. _

_I couldn't help you. I couldn't save you. There was no one more pathetic than me and I'm so sorry. For a long time I felt angry at you for what you did, and for dying, but I'm the one who sat and cried and never did anything to help. I thought I was the sane one, the one looking after you, but in the end I let you down._

_But, Kagami, there's no way to change the past. That's why I'm not afraid of dying anymore. I'm not sure if I believe in any afterlife, after all this, but in the end we're just too fragile to care so much about death or any other accident. And when I die, I can't help but think that I'll be coming to join you. Or I'll know what you felt like, at least. It's all the same, don't you think? I could die at any moment and in that moment all I'd have would be my memories._

_So all I can say is that I'm glad that I knew you, while I was still alive. _

–

**Author's note:**

This is a one-shot, but it's the first in a series of two with nuclear war as the theme. So at least one more chapter set in the world of For Those Left Behind is coming. Hope that's not too confusing.

Also, I know this story hasn't been very horrific or humorous so far. And that's a problem. But it's got gore and melodrama so it's not like there's no association with the tags at all. I've got more stories which better reflect the horror/humor thing planned, too, but it's just these were finished first and I got to feeling like they were first in order. So I decided to post them like this.

And, honestly, I got the tags wrong. My bad about that. Should have been horror/action or something. But it doesn't matter that much, does it?

Anyway, to be continued.

–


	3. For Those Left Behind: Part 2

Back again, with more nuclear war theme. And a lot more guns and swearing. Probably way too much, actually.

–

**Chapter 3: For Those Left Behind: Part 2**

–

The forests of Hokkaido were red. The spruce trees grew needles the color of rust, and it was rust that fell and coated the frozen earth between drifts of dirty black snow. Wintry clouds moiled above, acidic and still fat on ash from the war. The filthy air was cold and still. No birds sang.

Branches crackled underfoot. A Geiger-counter beeped steadily. Three small humans dressed in gas masks and torn camouflage-colored hazard suits walked in single file through the forest. They carried guns, rocket launchers and packs slung over their shoulders.

A road gleamed through the trees and the walker in the lead held up a hand. They halted instantly. Then the leader walked forward a few paces, raised binoculars from around her padded neck and scanned back and forth down the road.

It was empty. An expanse of cracked pavement gleaming with frost. The power lines overhead sagged with age where they still stood, between leaning telephone poles green with frozen moss.

The leader waved the other two forward.

–

Miles away, Nanako Kuroi rode in the passenger seat of a green truck as it bumped along the winding road. The former teacher was dressed in a military hazard suit with a white cross on the shoulder, her face hidden by a gas mask with a long hose. She had become a soldier, lean and muscled, with a rifle sitting against the door beside her.

Ahead of her truck drove an armored vehicle with four wheels which we'll call the LAV, light-armored vehicle, for convenience. It led a convoy of two trucks. The squad of soldiers shouted to each other over the sound of engines and crackling radios.

Kuroi had come through destruction, escaping from a Tokyo burnt to ashes. She'd always had bad luck. But she wondered about her students, sometimes—if any had lived. She would never know. The enemy from far away had turned the south into a death zone which really glowed.

The remnants of the state were hidden in the north, now, in the mountains of Hokkaido. Kuroi had become a medic-in-training, to help the society left behind.

–

The sound of powerful engines did not surprise the three walkers. They had followed the road to the top of a hill, days ago, and they could see it sloping down before them into a valley. A trail of gray through the red forest.

Dark clouds rolled by overhead. A breeze stirred the rusty needles of the trees, sighing in the grass.

The leader nodded to her two friends and slipped an assault rifle from its strap around her shoulder. Through the plastic circles of her gas mask, the golden eyes of a predator shone. It was Misao Kusakabe, no longer just an airhead. The scars under her suit burned. She put her gun down and lay down on her belly behind it. Then she raised the binoculars again, looking down the road.

Dusty green shapes appeared in the distance, climbing up toward her.

Misao smiled a fanged smile. Beside her, Yutaka Kobayakawa and Minami Iwasaki lay down as well and watched and waited.

Ayano was not there. She had died for one wrong step, a long time ago.

–

The soldiers had supplies in their trucks, sealed in crates and battened down under green tarpaulins. The armored LAV guarded them. These things were precious, snatched from nuclear destruction and guarded from the desperate masses. They were protected behind mountains and radioactive forests, and behind miles of land mines and barbed wire.

Kuroi thought about helping people as she rode along, tapping a gloved finger on the knee of her suit. Her helmet sat on the dashboard in front of her.

She had quit teaching a year before the war, when the evacuation protocols and the drilling and the stress of worry became too much. Ending up as a reservist working day-time as a truck driver, Kuroi had finally been able to relax. Her boss had been too distracted with his fallout shelter to care how late she made her deliveries.

Then the bombs had fallen, and turned the world into hell. Kuroi had been mobilized just days before the end. When the first missiles had hit, she'd been on a train going to report for duty in Hokkaido. The sky had turned black above her.

–

How many?

Probably less than a platoon.

Through her binoculars, Misao watched the convoy come.

I'm hungry, how about you?

Let me see, please.

Yutaka's voice was a whisper, muffled behind the hose of her gas mask. Misao handed over the binoculars. The shortest member of the group took them and peered down at the convoy, at the LAV in the lead.

It was an armored car with four wheels, the front draped in camouflage netting. A gunner sat in a hatch on the roof, behind a mounted light machine-gun. Yutaka had a rocket launcher, an RPG, on her shoulder and she took special interest. It's got wheels, no slat armor, she remarked quietly, a couple of patches. Looks like rivets. Lucky!

Misao laughed gleefully and patted her companion. You never miss, do you, Yuu-chan?

Minami put a hand on Yutaka's arm. Don't pressure her.

Sorry, sorry. Misao rubbed the back of her gas mask. But we're ready aren't we? That's an OK? Right, you know what to do.

The rumble of engines grew below them.

Misao picked up her rifle and stood up. Well then, it's the fucking military. I want no prisoners except the supply crates.

–

At first the soldiers had deployed to charred cities and tried to help people, but there was little they could do. Food and blankets meant nothing to burnt zombies dying on the roads, and the survivors were choking on radiation instead. Soon, orders came to return to their bases. To protect what was there and await reinforcements.

Nothing had come. The chain of command had been shattered and all communications had failed. Ash blew down and the black snow of winter came far, far too early. Starving hordes had come for their bases, for their food, their medicine and weapons and protections...and they had fought back ruthlessly.

In the end they had gone north, into the cold reaches of Hokkaido. They had fortified themselves against the cruelty outside.

Kuroi looked out at the red forest beyond her window. The truck rumbled beneath her and her partner, Shirashi, leaned over to shout into the ear of her gas mask. Kuroi glanced up and replied.

Since the war, she had been on several assignments. But eventually she'd decided to train as a medic. This time, she thought, she would help people. Really help them. Her luck was bad, but so what?

–

Misao headed downhill through the trees, following the road toward the oncoming military convoy.

She went alone, her rifle a heavy weight in her hands. A pack bumped against an RPG on her back. Knives and grenades rattled faintly on her belt between numerous pouches full of steel and brass. Misao looked out through plastic and breathed into her hose. Her combat boots crunched on frozen grass as she hurried along, slipping between trees and boulders.

The evening sky was a dark mass through the treetops, descending with her down the hillside.

Engines grumbled along with the rushing wind in her ears. Misao kept one eye on the road, but she knew the way and where to stop. She couldn't wait.

Misao had changed. When it came down to it, when she saw her best friend ripped apart by a land mine because of one wrong step, she had changed. The burning scars which lacerated her face and neck reminded her of that, every second of every day.

Behind her, Minami waited in the trees on the hilltop. Her weapon was a sniper rifle, the barrel braced between the branches of a fallen tree trunk. Below her, the green line of vehicles mounted a slope and appeared briefly over the top of a hill.

Yutaka was lower, kneeling on the hillside beside the road. Her RPG was braced against her shoulder and a pack of spare rockets lay open on the ground in front of her.

The road below her curved down to the edge of a long slope.

–

The convoy was coming quickly, filling the silence with noise and exhaust.

At the bottom of the slope, Misao turned toward the road. The engines were very loud in her ears. She emerged at the edge of the trees and threw herself down into a mass of rusty ferns.

Laying down her rifle, Misao pulled the RPG from her back and cocked it. She held the weapon in her hands as the military convoy rushed clanking past her and headed up the slope.

Then she rose to a crouch, and braced the RPG against her shoulder.

–

Did you hear that? Shirashi shouted to Kuroi over the rumble of their engine. The threat level for this area's just been raised.

Kuroi glanced out the window, at the LAV in front of them, slowing as they climbed the slope. Trees rushed by across the roadside.

A radiation warning?

No, bandits. Shirashi downshifted and glanced into the rear view mirror. Somebody spotted a perimeter breach, south of here. Think we'll see action?

Nah, I doubt it. Kuroi leaned back in her seat. Civilians couldn't survive out here for long.

The former teacher had worked for the state a long time, and she wasn't used to thinking of people as enemies but as problems. Even if the desperate eyes of the looters she'd gunned down long ago came back to her, a bad memory.

Ahead of her, the LAV crested the top of the slope.

–

Yutaka saw the armored vehicle appear over the top below her, and she waited as it braked suddenly in a squeal of machinery.

Lying across the road just over the edge of the hilltop was a pile of fallen telephone poles, the three nearest lying one on top of the other in a mess of broken lines. It was an obstacle the LAV could perhaps drive over, but the trucks behind it might have problems.

The driver of the LAV slowed instinctively, but momentum carried it on. The front tires just clipped the edge of a telephone pole, pushing the whole mess sideways. And crushing something together, inside.

There was an explosion.

–

Fire and smoke curled suddenly into the air. Shirashi cursed aloud as the LAV pulled to an abrupt halt in front of them. They put on the brakes at the steepest part of the hillside, pulling to a halt a few meters behind the tail of the LAV.

What the hell? Kuroi and Shirashi looked at each other as the truck behind them stopped as well. They were stuck on the middle of the slope. The radio crackled with confused noises and orders were barked.

Outside, a loud whistle rang out over the idling engines.

–

Yutaka knew the signal to attack. Looking through the sight along the top of her RPG, she aimed carefully at the LAV. It had halted, smoke rising from under the blackened front wheels—the one on the right looked as if it had been blown out. The mess of telephone poles was burning.

A gust of wind whistled up the slope, blowing down red needles from the trees. Yutaka waited a moment for it to pass. The dark clouds were running toward her across the sky, leaving the southern horizon a crack of gray.

Yutaka focused on the LAV below, in the second she had.

She'd sworn never to be a burden again the day her parents were killed—cut to pieces with machetes for the food in their basement. And she'd sworn it again when Ayano died trying to get medicine for her from the military. For her, the poor sick child who everyone had to protect.

She didn't hate the people inside there, the soldiers, but Misao and Minami wouldn't be safe until the enemies were dead.

And if she could have killed every other human in the world except herself and Misao and Minami, Yutaka would have done it in an instant. Because then her friends would be safe. And she could live happily with them, even on top of all the bodies.

The gunner on top of the LAV was swiveling his weapon on its mount, looking for any threats. The front passenger side door opened, a soldier in green beginning to get out. The wind was gone.

Yutaka braced her RPG. Her finger snapped down on the trigger.

–

There was a shock of force and the sound of igniting engines. A rush of wind and then a boom followed, as a rocket-propelled grenade struck its target and exploded.

For a very brief instant, the gunner atop the LAV saw a comet of red light lance out from the woods on the left side of the road above him. Then the rocket struck, and two explosions followed in rapid succession. The tip of the RPG shattered the bulletproof windshield on the driver's side of the LAV in a cone of molten shrapnel. Then the middle of the warhead struck the exact same place and detonated inside.

The twin blasts lasted only a second, spraying fire and pieces of hot metal and glass. Then black smoke gushed from the interior of the LAV and cries and crackling fire followed. The soldier who had been getting out leaped from the door dragging his rifle. Two more followed him, their suits scorched and smoking.

–

Kuroi heard the blast and the cries.

My head—shit!

Tachibana—!

Everyone out! Go!

We're under attack. One desperate, panicked look at Shirashi and then Kuroi was ripping off her seat belt and kicking the door open. She grabbed her rifle and bolted out of the truck. Soldiers were piling out of the smoking side doors of the LAV, falling into crouches as their boots hit the road. They raised rifles as the sergeant barked commands.

–

The gunner on the roof of the LAV, though, was still at his post. He spun his powerful weapon toward where he had seen the red flash—up the road, where a cloud of gray smoke lingered in the air.

–

The exhaust blast from the back of Yutaka's RPG rippled out behind her, flattening the tall grass and setting the red boughs of the trees to shaking. Smoke curled up in its wake.

Yutaka didn't hesitate. Pulling the RPG off her shoulder, she seized one of the fresh rockets from her pack and plugged it into the tube. Her heart thumped in her chest and her breath rasped loudly inside the damp plastic of her mask. She'd seen the first shot go in, but she needed to be sure. Two shots.

–

The gunner could have cut the woods to shreds in that instant, but his fingers never closed on the trigger.

A huge bullet slammed through the transparent eye of his gas mask, through skin and bone and brain and out the other side. He toppled, slipped, and fell back down the hatch. The machine gun jerked upward on its mount as his hands left it.

The long rifle shuddered against Minami's shoulder and the crack burst in her ears. Through her scope, she could see the road and the ditches on both sides of the LAV, as well as the tops of the two trucks lined up below the top of the slope. Anyone standing up would be an easy target. The remaining soldiers milled around bent-over beside their vehicles.

Minami was just beginning.

–

At the bottom of the slope, Misao had heard the blasts. She was kneeling, her RPG braced, turned to focus on the convoy sitting above her. From her position on the left-hand side of the road, Misao could cover the doors of both trucks and the back of the LAV jutting out above her.

The left-hand door of the second truck opened, the green-clad legs of a soldier appearing as he prepared to jump out.

Misao's finger clicked, without hesitation. Her rocket burst up the slope and through the door of the truck, detonating inside the cab. Glass shattered and smoke spewed out. A hot wind rushed down over Misao.

Unlike Yutaka, Misao was no rocketeer. She threw the empty launcher down and grabbed her assault rifle. Pulling it up against her shoulder, the fanged girl wasted no time in opening fire on the trucks and the soldiers gathered on either side of the LAV. Spent shell casings flew up around her.

–

Gunfire broke out across the red forest.

Kuroi jumped out into chaos. Smoke blew across the road from the LAV and chunks of metal rained down from above. The soldiers shouted furious orders and opened fire with their rifles, some on the trees above and some down the slope behind them.

Shirashi leaped out behind Kuroi. Get down, get down!

The squad sergeant squatted behind the back of the LAV, hefting his grenade launcher. Shots ricocheted off the trucks and the back of the LAV and a soldier twisted, suddenly, and went down beside the LAV clutching his leg.

You're under fire, Kuroi remembered, get down and stay down. She fell into a crouch behind the door of the truck, her rifle in her hand. Medic! Someone yelled. We need a medic. Help.

Shiraishi was behind her, his muffled voice wavering with panic. Where's Yamato? Where's Toruki? Kuroi glanced back at the truck behind them. Looking down the slope, all she could see was smoke gushing out from inside the shattered windshield. There was nobody in sight.

Bullets punched through the truck behind her. The sergeant raised his weapon and opened up with a shout.

Motherfucker behind us—get him!

Three grenades arced up in swift succession and came down on the woods at the bottom of the slope. They exploded spectacularly, one after another. Fireballs bloomed and dust rushed up in clouds as a red tree went crashing down. The soldiers behind the LAV raised their guns and blazed away into the fire, spitting curses.

Shirashi stood up, his rifle in hand. That's done it, he said. Now just cover the other side. He stumbled and Kuroi stared up at him. Dark blotches had opened across the top of his suit, above his webbing.

She got up and caught him, helped him sit down against the side of the truck. I need a medic. Kuroi was the medic, she suddenly remembered. Damn bad luck.

–

Shots sent little eddies of dust flying up from the sides of the ditch and the bank below the edge of the trees, but it was still south of Yutaka's position.

She hefted her RPG and aimed quickly. This was simple—finishing the job on a standing target. Aim, cock, fire! Yutaka's finger twitched and the blazing rocket burst away from her shoulder. A boom, and more smoke poured from the LAV's windows. The small-arms fire cut off.

Yutaka knew that it was past time to move, though. A cloud of gray smoke rose from her weapon, revealing her position clearly. The survivor let the RPG tube fall off her shoulder, grabbing it by its strap, and rose to her feet. Scooping up the pack of spare rockets, she turned and ran bent-over into the trees. Shots broke out again behind her, more and faster this time.

Yutaku would relocate, reload, and check her target. Minami would cover her, but there was no time to dawdle.

–

Something slammed into the LAV and blew up. Fire burst from the open doors of the armored vehicle and burning scraps of material arced into the air, falling across the road. More smoke followed, black and heavy, drifting out over the top of the slope.

Kuroi, shouted the sergeant, kneeling beside the soldier with the wounded leg. Kuroi, snap out of it. We need you here.

And then he pitched violently, and went down across the wounded man beneath him. The metallic crack lingered in the air for an instant, just as Kuroi saw the bloody hole carved through the back of the sergeant's gas mask. He was still. The wounded soldier under him moaned in panic.

Shirashi mumbled incoherently behind Kuroi and she glanced desperately back at him. The others were firing up at the trees and shouting. Some ran to the back of the LAV and others headed toward the ditch on the left side of the slope.

Kuroi was the medic. She had the doctor's bag on her back, with bandages and gauze and drugs. Her rifle was still in her hand. But to hell with that. This time she was going to help. Throwing the gun down beside Shirashi, she got up and dashed bent-over to the sergeant and the fallen soldier.

A quick check with one trembling, gloved hand, and she knew the officer was dead. Grabbing his shoulders, Kuroi heaved the body off. The wounded man underneath stared up at her in terror. Get down. There's a sniper.

It's Kuroi. Are you all right? She checked him, smiling a reassuring smile that nobody could see under her mask. I'm going to get you out of the way and then we're going to bandage you up. Help me carry him! Kuroi glanced around quickly, with practical panic. Nobody was close to her. She pulled the soldier's arm over her shoulder. Sorry, but it's just a little way. We'll do it together, so hup! That's good.

Staggering to her feet, she pulled him up beside her and headed back, down the slope, toward where Shirashi lay bleeding against the door of their truck. One step at a time.

–

Misao lay flat on the ground as the woods burned and shook with bullets around her. Fire scorched above and behind her and she felt the heat through her suit, the dirt hot under her fingers. Another second, another inch, and she could be dead. Maimed. Burnt to a crisp.

She remembered the hot shrapnel that had gouged across her once before, how first she had felt numb and then how she had been certain that she was going to die. And then the pain had come, and she had wished that she _had_ been dying like Ayano had been. No, don't think of that.

Her rifle was under her hand, pushed sideways into the dirt. Bullets whistled all around for a few moments. Had she caught the enemy's attention? Yes, she had. Was she going to die? No, no, of course not. Yutaka and Minami probably had the heat on them again now, though. Misao felt the wind of a bullet ripping through the air above her. Shots cracked into tree trunks and red branches fell flaming down on her.

Misao laughed aloud in exhilaration. I'm burning too hot to die, she told the dirt under her air hose. The devil wouldn't know what to do with me.

But who cared? Misao could see the road above her now, between clouds of wafting dirty smoke. A blast echoed and the bullets stopped. Either the enemy was about to die, or she was. Or she might have awhile to wait.

Fuck that, thought Misao, as her suit crackled. Her hand clenched on her rifle and she dragged it upright and back against her shoulder. These reckless moments were fun. She peered through the sight and saw the soldiers, two of them piling into the ditch above on her side of the road. Smoke in front again.

Misao's ejected the magazine from her rifle, fumbled another from a pouch at her belt and clipped it in.

–

Kuroi reached the truck and helped the soldier down beside Shirashi. Their only cover was the door and the lip of the slope above them, but Kuroi didn't know where else to go. The LAV and the truck behind her were both pouring smoke. She looked around, seeing two soldiers hunkering behind the LAV and another two in the ditch.

They were firing up at the woods now, holding their guns over their heads and shooting in short bursts. In the ditch, the squad corporal was yelling into a hand-held radio. Kuroi didn't have time to worry about that.

She pulled the medical bag off and dug into it, pulling out gauze pads. Shirashi's chest was covered in blood and he was trying to pull off his gas mask. The man with the wounded leg clutched it helplessly. Kuroi gave him a pad and then turned to Shirashi and checked him, quickly, feeling around his back for exit wounds. Shirashi, can you hear me? Can you breath? Shirashi, I'm going to help you. He answered.

Unbuckling his ruined bulletproof vest, she lifted it off and pulled a combat knife from her belt. Kneeling, she began to cut open the front of his suit. Quickly. Radiation be damned, at this point. Her hand shook as she cut, the knife slipping and catching infuriatingly in the synthetic material, and she had to hold the suit taut with her free hand. A second gauze pad lay ready in her lap.

The firing went on around her.

–

Calm blue eyes stared through plastic, then through a long scope. Steady, regular breaths rushed in and out filtered by a hose. The air was full of rattling automatic fire, drowning out all other sounds.

Minami looked through her scope, her hands steady on her rifle. Bullets rattled through the trees around her. But she'd hold out a little longer, for Yutaka's sake. The enemy was hiding from her, behind the back of the LAV and behind the door of one of the trucks below. But they would have to reveal themselves eventually, if they wanted to aim properly, to attack or to retreat.

She had allowed the wounded soldier to be rescued, because his presence would slow down the others. Distract them. And her rifle had a limited magazine, anyway.

Minami waited, watching the muzzle flashes.

–

Yutaka had gone downhill, following the right-hand side of the road to get a better view of the enemy. She stopped behind a clump of rocks to reload. Peering down through the trees at the enemy convoy, she held her RPG and considered. The LAV was as damaged as it could be on her side. Time to cover the trucks.

–

Kuroi's knife jerked free and she pulled away a patch of Shirashi's suit. Three bloody splotches stood out in dark relief on the tank top beneath it. Kuroi put down her knife and swatted Shirashi's hands away from his gas mask. Just breath, Shirashi, just calm down and breath. You need that. It's okay if you throw up in it. She pushed his head to one side.

He moaned desperate, delusional protests. Kuroi pulled back the tank top and stuck gauze in, over the wounds. Her hands came away sticky. The pads bloated with fresh blood. Seizing the knife again, Kuroi cut the straps from Shirashi's shoulders and pulled the sticking cloth away from his chest. The pads came with it, but Kuroi had more. She pushed them over the wounds and then wrapped medical tape around Shirashi's chest to hold them there, tight, working one-handed.

A quick glance at the other wounded soldier found him winding a bandage around his suit leg, trying to make a tourniquet with trembling hands. He needed help.

Calm down, calm down, Kuroi repeated a lesson from her training. Deep breaths.

A new, louder burst of gunfire broke out behind her. There were panicked shouts and crackling, distorted sounds from the radio.

–

Misao had changed position. She was standing behind a tree now, a fresh magazine in her rifle. Her first target was the corporal with the radio, a careful burst away up the slope.

A bullet banged off the man's helmet and he fell sideways into the ditch. Misao cursed and opened fire in earnest, perforating the corporal and his buddy as they turned to engage her. A radio fell to the ground and spat incoherent sounds.

Of the two soldiers in the ditch, only one got out. He ran up toward the others behind the LAV, but he was only a step over the slope when his head burst and he toppled backward. The two soldiers in front of him whirled to open fire on Misao again in a furious volley.

She was already shooting back, her bullets ricocheting off the side of the LAV above them. The enemy's fire thudded into tree trunks around her. Misao blessed her deal with hell. I've got lucky scars and I'm already burning, you can't kill me.

The two were close together, hunkering down behind their minimal cover. Misao could see them clearly and they could not see her.

–

Yutaka peered out from behind a tree, her RPG in hand. The second truck was still smoking, so Misao must have gotten it already.

It had only been a few minutes since the battle had begun, but it seemed a long time to Yutaka. She'd taken too long running, too much time off while her friends were in danger. Her fingers trembled in fear. She looked desperately down at the battlefield. All she could see was the smoking LAV and the trucks. She couldn't see the enemy, but she could hear the shooting. Was Minami shooting? She didn't know. The three survivors had radios, but Yutaka didn't think there was time to try that.

All she knew was that there might be enemies behind the truck, that first undamaged truck behind the LAV. And it would be best to disable it, anyway. Lifting her RPG to her shoulder, Yutaka aimed at the front of the vehicle.

–

Kuroi had turned around to find carnage. The corporal was hit, clutching his head in the ditch. His buddy lay dead in the middle of the road in front of her, his head a gory mess under his helmet. The two against the back of the LAV were exchanging fire down the slope, their rifles blazing against their shoulders, and then one jerked and dropped his gun.

Behind her, Shirashi was muttering nonsense and the soldier with the wounded leg was begging for help. They were pinned down. Kuroi looked out from behind the thin cover of her truck door and wondered what to do.

The soldier who had dropped his rifle leaped up. Desperately, he ran down the slope toward Kuroi. Toward cover from the woods. She heard the crack and then he fell and rolled down toward her. The sniper hadn't missed. He twitched and clutched at the jagged hole through his neck.

Kuroi grabbed her bag and dashed forward. They were going to die. She knelt beside the soldier. He was dying, frothing and clawing as he drowned in blood. Kuroi couldn't help him. But there was still Shirashi. She turned around.

Shots banged through the truck, the unarmored truck that was really no refuge at all. Shirashi jolted and tried to get up. It was a moment before Kuroi realized he had been shot again. Who the hell would shoot a wounded man?

Something drove itself into her shoulder and something else into her chest. Kuroi stumbled back, dropping the bag. Shirashi fell down in front of her, his wounds opening behind the pads. Bullets rattled everywhere.

Kuroi twitched in idiot rage, her hand falling to the holster at her side. She wasn't cut out for this, didn't want to do it. She'd wasted her life teaching doomed people useless things.

But the scum who had done this, they would pay! And she heaved herself up again, heart thumping, her pistol in her hand.

–

Yutaka fired a third shot.

–

Something flew very fast past Kuroi and then the truck in front of her exploded. It was a hot, sudden blow and a spray of molten metal fragments. The impact flung Kuroi backward in a rushing moment and her head hit the pavement. Stars exploded behind her eyes.

She rolled down the slope a few feet and stopped against a body, lying on her back.

–

Fresh smoke rose across the road. The front of the second truck was crumpled in and burning. The last remaining soldier was hit, clutching his hip with one hand. The shooting from below had stopped, finally, but all he could see in front of him was smoke and bodies. He was bleeding.

Turning away, he limped quickly and fearfully back into the one hiding place he could think of. The shattered and blackened interior of the LAV. Pulling himself inside, he fell down against the wall and clutched his rifle.

–

Minami watched the truck brew up. It was a relief, because now she knew that Yutaka was okay.

In her sights, black smoke wafted across still bodies. Until someone moving caught her eye. A soldier still lying on the road below the LAV, dragging himself up the slope in a smear of blood.

Cherry had crawled like that, by the end, scrabbling down the road after Minami. There were hazard suits for dogs, somewhere, but they'd never found any.

Minami had shot her dog. Had shot many people since. It had been mercy, and it had been so that she could protect Yutaka. The soldier below her gestured pathetically at the lip of the road, entreating.

Minami shot him as well.

–

Misao looked up through the last of the smoke. Her targets were gone, at least one of them lying on the road in front of the burning truck. There was no movement now, nothing but fire and fumes. The sudden silence was profound. Minami and Yutaka had come through for her again, in spades.

Of course, that didn't mean it was over. Probably not. But as a first stage the battle was going well. Misao finally lowered her rifle, taking a moment to look down the road the way the enemy had come. It was empty, but for how long?

She gave a piercing whistle.

–

Yutaka smiled gratefully at the sound, lowering her RPG. The shooting had stopped, and Misao was okay. Minami must be okay, too. Had she helped? Maybe. Yutaka whistled in reply and then set about slinging her RPG over her shoulder and the strap of her rocket pack around behind it.

Minami whistled as well, after a second. But she didn't relax—Misao and Yutaka were okay, but they would have to go in now. It was Minami's job to cover them.

Pulling up her rifle, the sniper slipped out from behind the tree trunk and changed position.

–

The last soldier hunkered against the wall of the LAV. His face was white and dripping sweat under his gas mask. His hands trembled on his rifle. His suit leg was soaked in blood.

The interior of the LAV was full of smoke. Sparks flashed intermittently from shattered electronics. The burnt body of the driver sat steaming in the front seat. The gunner's bloody corpse lay sprawled in the middle of the floor.

Every moment, the soldier expected another RPG shot to hit and blow him away. Or a sniper shot, somehow. Everybody else was dead, one after another. He shook with fear and rage. Maybe—maybe the bandits would get confident and come out. Evac was on its way. But if they came, if those fuckers came first...he lifted his rifle against his shoulder.

–

Yutaka moved down from the trees, scrambling through the ditch to emerge onto the road beside the smoking convoy. Her RPG was useless at close quarters, so she had drawn her automatic pistol.

Misao was already in the road, moving up toward the trucks. She flung a hard gesture at Yutaka with one hand, directing.

The small survivor shot back an OK sign and circled down toward the front of the LAV.

–

He waited, not making a sound or moving an inch. His sweat turned cold under his suit and he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. Then he heard it at last. Footsteps, light but definite, coming from the direction of the trucks. One step, two steps, light but firm and so loud in the utter, utter stillness that the soldier heard them over the crackle of the sparks and the thumping of his heart.

Closer, closer...a clank and the softest mutter. Someone had stepped on a piece of shrapnel blown from the LAV or the truck. The soldier had the sudden, idiotic idea he was about to shoot one of his own squad, or someone from the rescue mission. The vehicle radio had shorted out behind him. They'd approach like this.

No, it was far too early. Couldn't be. His hands tightened on his rifle. His finger shivered on the trigger. One more step, and he saw it—a flicker of dark movement behind the open door on his left. Near the front of the truck. They were coming. He raised his rifle and aimed through the door.

They would have to look in that door, and no matter how ready they were it would be his move. His move first. And he wouldn't hesitate. He knew he wouldn't hesitate for an instant.

–

Misao stood before the bodies lying in front of the first truck. She looked across the ditch, gun raised, where nobody was moving. Yutaka was on the other side of the LAV, and now she just had to check that. Moving quietly, one foot softly placed a few inches in front of the next, Misao approached the passenger side doors of the vehicle.

–

He could hear it. Steps again, so close. A dark flicker of movement through the crack in the doorjamb. Inches away. Another step. The soldier's heart was in his mouth behind clenched teeth. His finger trembled on the trigger. Another step.

A single shot rang out.

–

In the forest above, Minami stopped immediately and fell into a crouch. She sighted down her rifle. A wounded enemy, or...Yutaka? She swept the convoy. Yutaka was outside the front of the LAV, looking fine, but she couldn't see Misao.

Raising her rifle, Minami hurried forward again.

–

As soon as she'd heard the shot, Misao had flung herself down behind the back of the LAV. She whirled around immediately, rifle swinging. Then her brain registered that it had been a pistol shot. Throwing caution to the winds, Misao left the doors and ran around to the front of the vehicle.

–

Yutaka lowered her pistol. The kick was bad, and her wrist ached. She felt sorry, too, for the green-suited soldier who she had shot through the shattered windshield of the LAV.

But she had to keep her friends safe.

It was only a moment before Misao was with her, panting and babbling with concern, and Yutaka had to explain what she had done. The soldier lolled against the wall inside the LAV, his head shattered.

–

Kuroi twitched as she came awake. Dragged herself out of the dark and into the pain. Pain, pain all across her chest in burning slivers. She groaned into the hose of her gas mask.

What had happened? Why did it hurt so much? There was no alarm, no sound of the barracks or of her apartment. And it hurt so much. It hurt to breathe.

There were muffled voices above her.

"...Get to it in a minute."

"Over there...one still moving."

Kuroi felt the danger, somehow. Her eyes flickered open, and her hands clenched spasmodically. Her fingers grazed the handle of her pistol and she grabbed it automatically. The overcast sky brooded above her, tangled with rising columns of dark smoke.

Her chest thumped painfully and she spasmed, twisting over onto her side. The movement pulled something in her gut and Kuroi choked and hacked and in desperation pushed herself up on her elbows. A world of blood and bodies and smoke jolted into view below the graying sky. The heat of flames licked at her side as memories came rushing back.

And then everything was blotted out by a figure in a tattered camouflage suit and gas mask. Kuroi thought at first it was a fellow soldier, one of the cavalry come to rescue her, but there was something wrong. Burnt patches all over the mask and the suit. And the gear was wrong, the rifle pointing down at her was wrong.

It was a bandit. Kuroi twitched and wrenched up her pistol, her finger on the trigger. Her insides burned and she choked a curse again, blood coming up into the back of her throat. The muzzle of the bandit's gun stopped in front of her eye.

"I wouldn't, if I were you." A distorted voice, muffled by the gas mask, but a woman's voice. Even a high, young sort of voice that could have belonged to one of Kuroi's students.

Kuroi stared up, at the bandit who she noticed was rather small. The person who had killed her squad, shot the sergeant, Shirashi, everyone. And why? It was only a routine mission. Just grunt work. So why?

The former teacher jerked her gun up and pulled the trigger. All she got was a click.

"Safety's still on that," the bandit gloated. Then she grabbed the pistol and ripped it out of Kuroi's hand, hard. Next a booted foot slammed down on Kuroi's stomach and she cried out in pain. The rifle hovered inches from the soldier's eye.

"Why?" Kuroi asked, pushing the word out of her chest. And she laughed, in a wheezing bloody rattle. "Why would you do this?"

The rifle swung back and the boot was removed. Then a gloved hand grabbed the soldier by the front of her suit and pulled her up onto her elbows, the muzzle of the gun pressing against her chest instead.

The gas-masked face of the bandit leaned in close, the front and hose pulsing in and out with every word. "Why?" the young voice gritted out. "I don't know. Why did you start a nuclear war? Why did you lay fucking minefields all over the country? Why are you here, hogging all the food? The world's just full of questions, ain't it?"

The bandit threw Kuroi down on the pavement, breathing hard. "Where's your HQ, meathead? How many people there?"

Kuroi didn't respond. She looked up at the sky and gurgled out a pathetic chuckle through the pain. "I didn't do any of that. I just wanted to help people," she told the gray heavens. "All my life I tried to help, but I've got damn bad luck. And the world's _full _of ungrateful fuckers." Her face hardened suddenly.

And with a yell, Kuroi lunged upward and slammed her head up into the bandit's mask. The stranger yelped and stumbled back, rifle swinging to one side. Kuroi's chest blazed, but she was damned if she'd stop. She staggered upright and took the bandit in a flying tackle. They went down together, the bandit under Kuroi. She punched it in the hose, cracked her elbow down on its arm...the bandit grabbed her shoulder and Kuroi wrestled up her knee and slammed it forward into the bandit's hose and the chin beneath, snapped it up.

Someone shouted behind her. A girl's voice. But Kuroi didn't care. Blood rushed in her ears. She was going to die. All her life was used up. All her life, all her life—for this! She punched down again. Hit the enemy's masked face. Hit again and again and snarled, "I'll kill you! You rat! You rat! You'd do anything!" Kuroi didn't even care about the gun. What did it matter? The world was already over.

The bandit slammed her rifle sideways into Kuroi's head. The impact rang in her ears and it stung, but the pain made her angrier and she hit again.

"I'm burning, burning too hot!" The bandit laughed insanely, though Kuroi could see blood under the hose of her gas mask. "I'm burning up!"

And then the bandit had her legs up under Kuroi and feet exploded into her chest. The former teacher was thrown back, off, her ribs burning. Fucking slippery rat. Kuroi stumbled upright, coughing, clenching her fists and running forward. The bandit slammed her rifle barrel into Kuroi's chest and she was thrown back again, vomiting blood into her hose. Up again, staggering, gas mask full of sticky filth. Then a hand grabbed her shoulder.

The bandit's fist slammed Kuroi's head sideways. It made her stumble. Then she was being pulled back again and a knee came up hard. Synthetic material and hose smashed up into Kuroi's nose and it gave sideways in a welter of blood. A lot of blood. She was choking. The bandit threw her down on the ground and kicked her hard in the stomach again and again.

Kuroi twitched and frothed. She was done. The pain sprayed and cracked across her insides. She gasped curses as the bandit finally stepped back, chest heaving under her burnt suit.

"Fuck you! You won't kill me," the small, young, murderous scumbag snarled. "You won't kill me like you killed Ayano. I'm already burning, fucker."

Kuroi still didn't care. She was reaching up, trembling, pulling the bloody gas mask off her head. She couldn't breathe. It came off in a welter of gory filth and finally the cool air flowed in. Kuroi spat out blood and lay there on her side, trembling and vomiting.

The bandit loomed above her, rifle in one hand. There was a second person beside her now, even smaller, pointing a pistol at Kuroi with both hands. Hands that shook.

"...I can't wait until someone gets the jump on you, instead," Kuroi said thickly. "Someone just a bit faster or luckier. And then you'll die like the rats you are. It's inevitable. You know that? Maybe they'll fucking torture you first. Bet nobody likes you."

Silence. Kuroi stared up at the bandits in hatred, at the sky, at the red forest behind them. A life of bad luck. All bad luck. And why? So she could do one thing, one thing! But in the end she would just die for nothing. She hadn't helped anyone.

"You going to shoot me?" Kuroi flung the words at her enemies. "Go on! You already did, twice, me and a wounded man! You're really fucking brave, you criminals! Beat me up when I'm already shot..."

The bandit jerked a step forward, but she didn't raise her rifle. Her fingers clenched on it. And at last she said, "I'll spare your life, if you answer my questions. Fucking answer me _now_."

And all at once Kuroi had something she could do in her life. One thing that could really help. A noble duty—not be these people's snitch. How appropriate. A teacher, and never a snitch. So she spat out blood and said, clearly, "No. I wont tell you." And she looked up at them with her bare face and grit her teeth, radiation and watering eyes be damned. "I'll never tell, you little shits."

The bandit swore and whipped up her rifle, aimed it. Kuroi stared back defiantly. And then, cursing, the bandit whirled around and marched off a few steps.

Kuroi couldn't believe it. "...And now you chicken out?" she shouted. "Now?" She suddenly felt like getting up, like fighting, bleeding be damned.

Kuroi swallowed blood and pushed her hands down, levering herself up on her elbows. The world swam with dark spots. The sky tilted, gray and vast overhead. And one more time, she wondered why she had such bad luck. But even with bad luck, there's a purpose. To be loyal, to fight, to help someone in the world just once—

Yutaka shot her through the head.

–

Misao listened to the echoes and heaved angry gulps of air through her hose.

She felt bad. Deeply miserable, in fact, down to her bones. Her nose was throbbing, probably broken, and her mask was full of blood. But it didn't compare to the burning scars. Just a scratch.

No, Misao was miserable because of how badly she'd fucked up. She hadn't wanted to kill someone in front of Yutaka and she'd totally lost her cool as a result. And now she'd made Yutaka kill people, too. Twice. Minami would be furious, and rightly so. Misao clenched her fists and stomped on the pavement in fury.

And that person, that dumb blonde bimbo...

A gentle hand took her arm. "Misao?" Yutaka's voice was so soft, gently questioning. "Are you okay? I'm really sorry. I should have just...been there quicker."

And now Yutaka had to take care of her. Misao barked a bitter laugh. "What are you sorry for? This is my fault. Wasted all this time..."

She heaved a sigh and looked down at Yutaka. What was she thinking? Yutaka had just killed two people. She had to say something.

"Yuu-chan...I didn't want you to do that. To have to do that..."

"It's okay," said Yutaka, and Misao could see her friend's eyes were calm under her mask. "I'm used to it, Misao. It's okay."

"Okay..." Misao looked down at her friend, at a loss of words. Yutaka stood solidly under the weight of her gear, with her RPG and the pack of rockets slung over her shoulder, her pistol still in her hand. Misao felt suddenly stupid. Did she want to baby Yutaka, or rely on her? Still, she couldn't help feeling miserable. Yutaka had been through so much already and Misao had just...wanted to shield her somehow.

She looked away, at the scorched and bloody bodies lying all around them. What a joke that was. Misao had to rely on Yutaka to fight, because this was reality. There was no shielding anyone.

It was just...maybe what that person had said. Misao was a criminal, a fucking rat, whatever. She did what she had to, just like everyone who wanted to survive. But maybe she'd told herself it was okay, that she was better, because she did it to protect Yutaka. Just like Minami killed people, too, but it was to protect Yutaka.

Misao heaved a sigh. She _was_ better, for doing anything for Yutaka. If only she was sure that she actually was helping, and not just dragging her friends to their doom with her incompetence. Still the same old Misao, still so reckless and selfish.

"Misao, you're hurt." Yutaka's voice was gentle with concern. "Your nose."

"Oh, that? It's okay." Misao laughed awkwardly, looking back at her friend again. "I've had worse in high school. Nothing broken. Or nothing that I'll miss anyhow. It's just..." She shrugged. "Something about that soldier, I guess. She reminded me of Hiiragi for some reason."

Yutaka met her glance, with the same calm. She spoke eventually, in a low, thoughtful voice. "That was Ms. Kuroi. She used to be Konata's homeroom teacher in high school. I think they were friends, so she might have known Kagami too."

It took a moment for Misao to understand what she had just heard. Then she froze, her eyes locked on Yutaka's. Her mind suddenly felt numb, and then a wave of misery and self-disgust washed over her. It was a moment before she thought to say something.

"Oh, Yutaka, I'm really sorry."

What could she do? Well...Misao turned and pulled Yutaka into a hug. Put her arms around her. That was probably a bad idea, but it was the only one she had. Her hose bumped against Yutaka's RPG.

"I'm really sorry," she said again helplessly. It sounded so stupid. "Yutaka, I didn't know."

Yutaka wrapped her arms around Misao in return. The small girl rested her chin on her friend's shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay, Misao. I'm just glad you're all right."

Misao's eyes suddenly felt hot, and she sniffed heavily through her bloody nose. "I wish Hiiragi were here now," she told Yutaka, "she was always really smart. She would know what to do about all this, a lot better than me."

Yutaka sighed and squeezed a bit harder, her voice muffled by her mask and Misao's shoulder. "If Kagami were here now, I'd shoot her," she muttered. "I'd shoot everyone in the world to make sure you and Minami were safe. I'd burn it all twice. Because...you and Minami are the only ones I care about."

Misao patted her friend's back with her free hand and sniffed. "Ayano then," she said thickly. "I wish Ayano was here."

Yutaka said nothing, but pressed close against her friend. They each had a gun in one hand, held awkwardly against the other person's back. They stood there for a while, amid the burning wreckage and the bodies of their victims.

But they couldn't wait for long. More enemies would be coming, and Misao and Yutaka had to work fast while the light lasted and Minami covered them. They looted ammunition and a few choice guns, shot through the sides of the crates in the backs of the trucks and pulled out all the food, and all the water bottles and medicine, they could find. Then they made tracks for the woods.

They climbed away, back into the silent depths of the red forest, to rest, to regroup and lose pursuers. And to plan their next grasp at survival, which was their next revenge against all the rest of the miserable world.

–

**A/N: **I actually had a version of this done when I posted the second chapter. It was a lot more like the second chapter, in that it had a lot of clunky exposition. Rewrote it several times, and the last two scenes are all I've got left of the original. Hopefully it's gotten better. I've still got a lot of clunkers here, I know, but I've tried to reduce them.

Moving on, the lack of quotation marks in the first three-quarters of this chapter is intentional. There's two reasons for it.

1, an attempt to be atmospheric. The idea is to create the effect that the characters are concentrating or panicked. The rest of the world is just a rushing noise in their ears. They have tunnel vision, etc.

2, because the dialogue in the first three-quarters is mostly just one-liners and people saying things like: 'okay? Okay.' It's hardly dialogue at all, in my opinion. So the idea is to make it seem more like a monologue, or like the characters are just summarizing broader and more general conversations. I had quote marks for it in previous versions, and a lot more of that kind of not-dialogue, but I just didn't like how it turned out. It seemed cheap.

Granted, this story is pretty cheap in general but hey, no need to make it any cheaper. Unless you think it's just pretentious cheapness, which is probably the worst. But maybe you can enjoy that anyway, like I do.

Besides that, I'd also just like to note that realism is not at all what I'm trying for here. My limited research would suggest that the scenario in this chapter is pretty unreasonable, mostly the fire-fight is far too short in general, the RPGs are too effective and reliable, and the soldiers are too slow and too easy to pin down. And, of course, too inaccurate with their guns.

But the point was to make the battle short. The idea is it all takes place over the course of a couple minutes. Sometimes I think I made it too short and other times too long. I could have just cut it out altogether and had Kuroi wake up after a time skip, and cue the drama, but I like my unrealistic action scenes too much for that. That's about it. Next chapter will be something different.

Edit: fixed some small errors.

–


End file.
